£100m boost for beet sugar industry in eastern England

The Norfolk Farming COnference at The John Innes Centre in Norwich.
Some pf the people involved in the conference l-r: Calrke Willis, Chief Exec Anglia Farmers, Prof Simon Blackmore, Head of Engineering at Harper Adams University, Richard Johnson, MD John Deere UK, and Ben Turner, MD of Ben Burgess.

Colm McKay, director of agriculture, told about 250 delegates at the John Innes Conference Centre, of plans to invest an initial £50m plus further investment to prepare for the ending of Europe’s sugar quotas from 2017.

“We need top have confidence that we can cope with seasons when the beet quality is not ideal. “With this in mind, we’re investing close to £50m this season and anticipate similar investment levels in the coming three years,” he added.

The investments included an energy reduction project, control system replacement, and thick juice import and export capability at Cantley. Last December, a total of 270 tonnes of energy-saving equipment was transported by barge from Lille in northern France as part of the estimated £12m investment.

Mr McKay said that the Wissington factory, near Downham Market, which is the world’s largest beet processing refinery, will also benefit from the investment in a refurbished diffuser and increased filtration capacity. The projects at Bury St Edmunds, which was the second largest factory, include increased juice tank capacity while a new animal feed drier will be installed at Newark, Nottinghamshire.

British Sugar had invested significantly over the years with about £300m invested since 2005, said Mr McKay. It was worth remembering that the home-grown industry produced a record 1.3m tonnes of sugar in 2011.

He told delegates that the home-grown sugar industry had boosted crop productivity by more than 60pc since 1980 and that British Sugar’s factories had cut energy use by 25pc in the past quarter of a century. Mr McKay said that British Sugar’s costs of production was competitive with other beet producers and increasingly with top cane producers around the world.

However, he warned that the ending of Europe’s sugar quotas from October 1, 2017 was likely to see a further slide in prices. A combination of more competition from European producers and a further slide in the world price, which had already fallen from 36 cents per lb to the present 15 cents or about £220 tonne were likely to put beet prices under pressure. “I realise that this is a very stark message,” he added.

Mr McKay told growers that British Sugar “wanted to have an appropriate campaign length that maintained beet as an attractive crop to growers while also us to make efficient use of our assets.” Further, the continuing increase in average yields was a welcome trend.

Beet growers’ leader William Martin, who farms 1,000 acres at Littleport, near Ely, said that some aspects of Mr McKay’s paper had not exactly “been a bundle of laughs.”

It was also announced that two Norfolk beet growers, Andrew Ross, of Edgefield, an Tim Young, of Hockwold, had been elected to the National Farmers’ Union’s sugar board and Lincolnshire grower Nick Wells had been re-elected.

BLOB Anglia Farmers’ chief executive Clarke Willis reported that members of the agricultural buying group had given more than £20,000 to help transport fodder to the West Country. A remarkable £10,000 had been pledged in the first 48 hours, he said.

Currently trending

So what it boils down to is British Sugar wants farmers to grow sugar beet for next to nothing so they can make vast profits. There investment is a drop in the ocean as they will put it against it against tax. Through there greed they are unable to sell sugar at the moment and fresh stock is being dumped in barns in Suffolk, I won't be buying a new beet harvester but a bigger combine is a strong possibility. There days are numbered despite all the talk.